I WAS BORN IN A TREE AND RAISED BY BEES

Like Crinkleroot, the Santa-like backwoodsman who guides kids through the seasons, Arnosky lives in the bush and wishes to share with children his delight in observing nature. But asking questions like ""how many drones and worker bees can you count"" (on a pictured honeycomb) is an uninspiring way to do it. Crinkleroot's tour mixes other hidden pictures with project suggestions (growing popcorn, tracing leaves), a mini-lecture on interdependence (""Try to figure out what food chain you belong to""), and random notes on everything from where different wild flowers grow to why owls keep turning their heads. The welcoming informality of the sketches suggest that Arnosky would make an agreeable trail companion, but children should expect something more than a cutesy rehash of other nature books from a canny old woodsman who claims to ""speak caterpillar, turtle, and salamander too.